President’s Message
by Randy Huth (randy.huth@mpsd.ca)
Dear Members,
Happy Easter! I hope everyone had a relaxing long weekend. As we enter the final stretch of another school year, I wish everyone a wonderful teaching and learning experience in your classrooms and schools.
I was fortunate to attend ASCD’s 65th Annual Conference in San Antonio, Texas, along with a number of our BCASCD Executive and educators from across Canada. ASCD Executive Director, Dr. Gene Carter expressed how this year’s conference theme, Critical Transformation, underscores the need for powerful change in learning and teaching to prepare our young people to be competitive and productive citizens. Over three days, thousands of educators who attended ASCD’s annual conference received valuable professional development essential to improve student achievement. There were many workshops that I attended that had a huge impact on my thinking such as Differentiated Instruction by Carol Ann Tomlinson, Teaching with Poverty in Mind by Eric Jensen, and the Kids left Behind (catching up the underachieving children of poverty) by William Parrett. However, in my President’s message, I have decided to talk about the direction of education and technology in the future.
Over the last two years, BCASCD has hosted two very successful dinner meetings on the topic of education and technology. BCASCD has had the vision of recognizing the importance of technology and for educators to use technology as a tool to meet the needs of today’s learners. Our focus on the importance of technology was reconfirmed at the annual conference. One of the keynote speakers, Don Tapscott, the best-selling author of “Grown Up Digital”, got huge laughs and applause for his optimistic perspective of digital students and the future of education. Tapscott told the audience that we are teaching the “smartest generation in history”. He urged educators to empower students and to reinvent traditional methods of instruction by embracing technology.
“Internet is not a problem, it is a learning opportunity,” said Tapscott. “Don’t blame the internet for how our approach to learning and thinking has changed. That’s like blaming the library for ignorance.”
Delivered in a self-deprecating style with humourous asides, Tapscott spoke about the changing generations. We are creating a generation that is thinking differently from every generation before. Tapscott stated, “students today can multi task and are constantly searching, storytelling, collaborating, developing and authenticating.”
In conclusion, Tapscott told us that the traditional mode of instructional delivery needs to change; lecturing is no longer effective. He also encouraged educators to disable the “generational firewalls” that have been erected between educators and their students and to embrace a culture of collaboration, integration and self-organization. Further, Tapscott stated if we ban social media such as Facebook, we are telling students that we don’t understand them and that we don’t trust them as people.
After listening to Dan Tapscott’s powerful presentation, I have a more optimistic view of today’s students and their use of technology, and on a personal level, I have a more profound and deeper appreciation of the time my daughter simultaneously spends on Facebook, her computer and her blackberry.
Randy Huth
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